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Of Paint and Writing

Paint has redemptive power. My first experience of this came at age 16 while refinishing my dresser. I removed the burlap from the drawer fronts, sanded everything, used white paint to cover the dark brown, stained oak pulls and added them to the drawers.

Twenty-five years later, I hired painters to transform my entryway.

Maybe it’s the paint fumes, but damn if the whole creative process doesn’t apply equally to writing…at least in this post. I’ve broken it down here, so my readers get a primer for either home projects or writing. Choose your own adventure.

The Conceptual Phase

In writing pedagogy, “brainstorming” is the proper lingo. My friends in the mental health community might call this “mania.” At 2 a.m., ideas speed like whirling dervishes through my brain. This phase scares my poor husband. “Just let me know when you decide what you want,” he says.

I am fortunate to have a gifted friend @AlexandraDesignFinds. Within minutes of texting her about my design emergency, she called to ask it she should bring her paint samples.

Aside: Yes, I did just use a twitter handle instead of my friend’s name because social media will notify her that way. And this is all about getting you the reader to hopscotch around the Internet and follow her blog, and mine, but mostly mine.

Putting it on Paper

The blank wall, blank page, blank computer screen are sirens calling. When the dude arrives with a tape measure, shit gets real fast. Estimates, calendars, and deposits… the writing equivalent would be a pitch for an article and an advance. If I were the type of person who could come up with a thesis statement before writing the whole essay, I might be more successful at this. Being a customer, I dug out my wallet.

Aside: I married well. My husband jokes that he’s my sugar daddy. It’s true. Don’t think for a minute that I actually make money writing.

With the Big Start Day (B.S.D.) inching closer, I generated some “while you’re here, could you just ____?” requests. Hearing “Cha-Ching” instead of the specifics, the company president said, “Sure, we can do that.”

When asked about number of days that my family would be unable to climb our stairs and use our bedrooms, Head Honcho said, “Don’t you just want to go on vacation while we do the work?” What he meant was, “Oh shit, this lady is going to be trouble.”

B.S.D. and Subsequent Work Day(sss)

My first clue came when the company president’s brother, the carpenter/foreman, arrived. I took Brother on the tour. He scratched his head and asked how long Head Honcho had estimated the project would last. His forehead crinkled into a horizontal dash and his head bobbed in an impressive cross between affirmation and denial. I have that same response every time I look over my jumble of incoherent thoughts and realize that I need 1,200 semi-intelligent words by Friday.

Brother introduced Deputy along with a posse of two and left, still shaking his head.

Deputy spoke wonderful English with me before he turned toward the posse and let loose a stream of Spanish that might have translated to “This crazy bitch thinks we’re going to finish in four days.” Somehow, I worried as the tarp went up to cordon off the area. Would I wind up without any chair railing in the entryway and the wrong color on the walls? Two options came to mind: 1) stand over the crew of three men to convey that I didn’t trust them or 2) leave the house on an errand, but return before they had time to do irreparable harm.

Aside: Lest I sound paranoid or racist let me assure you that I’ve had a native English speaker crash through the attic floor causing bits of thirty-year-old insulation to snow from the ceiling. Incompetence knows no racial or linguistic boundaries. Sometimes, it’s best to walk away.

Inspiration

While they painted,the workmen listened to and sang along with Christian music in Spanish. For hours. With an iPod plugged into MY electrical outlets.

Aside: When I hear the first notes of gospel music or Barry Manilow-esque ballads to God while channel surfing in my car, I hit the “search” button faster than I do when inappropriate rap lyrics blare from the speakers towards my not-so-innocent children.

I didn’t complain for the same reason that I never send meals back at restaurants: someone might spit in my food, or worse. Annoyed but feverishly writing to a deadline, I blocked the noise. Or so I thought, until I found myself humming along to one song. Nuggets of memory stirred. But my deadline didn’t involve reminiscing about Amy Grant and my high school years when I loved Jesus like the boyfriend I didn’t have.

Aside: if I were a disciplined and organized writer, I would record this moment in my journal and find some profound place for it later on – an essay, perhaps. Instead, I’m going to exploit it here in hopes that I get a few laughs and followers.

A closet chock full of memories had blown open. That song reminded me that memory isn’t a sharp digital image that can be replicated on the page. Often it’s visceral: the stomach cramping that precedes a bowel movement (B.M., as my mother used to call it).

Can’t they work any faster?

I would have been more annoyed when the crew took one-hour lunch breaks each day if I hadn’t used the time to rest/nap in the basement. My husband pointed out that we were paying them by the job, not the hour, and that paint needs a chance to dry.

Aside: I now believe that writers like Hemingway drank and caroused so heavily to let the ink dry on the page. Time away is good. Ideas need time to marinate; writers need distance to gain some perspective. It’s also difficult to be uptight when you’re drunk and/or experiencing blood rushing away from your brain to erogenous zones.

Seeing Spackle on walls and sanded wooden spindles didn’t really WOW me. But when Deputy took down the plastic sheeting while packing up Tuesday afternoon, I admired the color. It was breathtaking; like that perfect paragraph in a draft that gleams while the rest of the pages belong in an overflowing trash bin. I couldn’t keep from staring, rereading it, and congratulating myself on my impeccable taste.

No Show Wednesday

There’s the need for distance and then there’s the day that the crew just doesn’t show. I’d cancelled with the cleaning lady to accommodate the workers (see Aside above regarding Sugar Daddy). Brother called at 8 a.m. to explain that he couldn’t make it until tomorrow, and the guys really couldn’t continue until he bought supplies and performed his carpentry magic.

Aside: Brother is my writing group in this extended metaphor. He’s the dude who assesses the work, replaces the wood trim that didn’t survive the carpet removal process, and drives screws into the banister so it doesn’t collapse when my kids use it as a launch pad. He’s worth waiting for.

Aside to the Aside: I have surpassed my self-imposed 1200 word max. This bad boy, like my home project, is going “To BE Continued.” In the meantime, share me with your friends on FB and Twitter. There are lovely little icons that you just click. See them? Thank you! Until next time….

LOVE! And I can so relate to this – we gutted a large portion of our place when we moved in. Major drama, twice as long to finish as they promise, a mini revolution among the workers because the boss dude wasn’t paying… yay. Are you going to the brunch? I hope you are going to the brunch.